Gower roundhouse badly damaged by fire

Pierre Donahue

A fire has badly damaged a popular Swansea community building.

The roundhouse in Caswell valley near Swansea was found to be burning this morning.

South Wales Fire and Rescue attended and put out the fire using a specialist fire truck due to the isolated location.

A spokesperson for the fire service stated that they were yet to establish a cause for the blaze. The area has been taped off for safety.

The roundhouse, a wooden structure with an earth roof, has been a feature in the valley for some years and is a well used meeting place by the local and wider Swansea community. But this is the second fire to happen, with it often being the target of anti social behaviour.

Karen Jones the warden for Bishops Wood Nature Reserve said she was very sad about the damage. “So many people have a connection to nature through using it. It’s a real focal point. It’s sad that people have lost the chance to use it like dance groups, children’s groups, educational groups, schools. We’ve even seen a wedding there.”

Mrs Jones says its too early to say what the future now holds. “ We will have to put some fencing up and get an engineer to assess what can be done. It’s possible it might be repaired”.

Local councillor Lyndon R Jones confirmed that an engineer was going to attend as soon as possible. “It’s very disappointing that this has happened. It’s very well liked. Once an engineer has investigated, which will happen soon, it can be decided what can and can’t be done, and then we will need to decide what to do.”

On some online forums people are already calling for a possible Crowdfunder campaign to pay for a rebuild, with support from the groups that use it, with one person commenting: “It’s such an important resource for the community. There is a lot of goodwill to get it repaired as soon as possible.”